another stupid timer question...sorry

I know I know...I've looked at 30 posts on this and still can't get it to do what I want. Sorry for posting it again, but I've been beating myself over the head, and I have to get this done.

Now,

I have a MC on stage named Fred. Fred has 4 frames. I want to change to a random frame in fred every 5 seconds.

Fred has a stop() in his first frame.

Here's what I have placed on fred:


onClipEvent(load) {
fred.gotoAndStop(random(4)+1);
delay = 5000; // a 5 second delay
resetTime = getTimer() + delay;
}

onClipEvent(enterFrame) {
if (getTimer() > resetTime) {
gotoAndStop(random(4)+1);
}
}

When the movie starts fred waits 5 seconds then he just starts flippin through his 4 frames.

Anybody?

Thanks,

-Lemorris

You've nearly got it, you just need to reset the timer whenever you you've determined it's time to jump frames, like so:

Modifying your original code:
(I wasn't sure what 'fred' was - if it's the clip this code is attached to, you don't need it).

code:

---

onClipEvent(load) {

  gotoAndStop(random(4)+1);

  delay = 5000; // a 5 second delay

  resetTime = getTimer() + delay;

}



onClipEvent(enterFrame) {

  if (getTimer() > resetTime) {

    resetTime = getTimer() + delay;

    gotoAndStop(random(4)+1);

  }

}

---

Here's a shorter rewrite:

code:

---

onClipEvent(load) {

  resetTime = 0; // force it to go off right away

}



onClipEvent(enterFrame) {

  if (getTimer() > resetTime) {

    resetTime = getTimer() + 5000;

    gotoAndStop(random(4)+1);

  }

}

---

Here's a more concise method that uses setInterval. Should be less of a drain on the CPU since you're not using an enterFrame handler.

code:

---

onClipEvent(load) 

{

  setInterval( function(mc) {  mc.gotoAndStop(random(4)+1) }, 5000, this);

}

---

- Jim

Great Scott Jim!!

Who are you?!!

Thanks much for the speedy reply. You pulled my hinder out of the fire again.

-Lemorris

who am i?

Glad to be of service.

Hi,

wondering if anyone has insights into the 3rd approach, with which I got a very different effect than with the other 2.

I've been trying to understand setInterval better so I was happy to see Jim was giving an example. I've read some of his posts on other stuff, & looked at KrazyDad - all great.

I'm not having any luck, though, with the setInterval example. I'm copying and pasting it to a mc containing 5 different frames - the same mc that works with the other approaches. With the setInterval approach, it races randomly through the frames for 5 seconds....

Wondering if anyone can explain how to make setInterval behave the same as the other 2. I'm imagining it will give me a better understanding of what's going on than even just seeing a working one.

cs